Advent is upon us

Which means that here in our household we have completed 90% of our interior and exterior Christmas decorating. Above are Ben and Autumn on the deck playing with light sabers on Thanksgiving. It was cold, rainy and fabulous. I did just notice that Ben has a picture of Jesus on his shirt while he is ponting a light saber at Autumn's neck....nice touch, huh? Next to them are the faux Christmas trees upstairs. The one in the foreground is in the hallway and the background one is in my bedroom. In our house we can't have too many Christmas trees. The only one we decorate, tho, is the real one. The rest we just have lights on. I'd light my cats if I could! :-)Below is a sampling of our ever growing collection of Rankin/Bass 1960's Television Christmas Specials. Robert and I are completely hooked on these TV specials from our youth. So far, we have figures from Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer, Santa Claus Is Coming To Town, and The Year Without A Santa Claus (how many of you can sing the Heat Miser song?)

Yesterday we finished the last of everything...except for the final touch which is the real tree that we will get this Saturday. We will probably decorate the tree on Sunday, the first day of Advent. Which reminds me that I need to get a new Advent wreath, my old one is so bent it won't hold the candles properly. So, why do I get all this done early? Because I can then enjoy the Advent season ( or time leading up to Christ's birth) relatively stress free. As a family we can focus on making Christmas cookies, find special gifts for those we love, singing along to Christmas songs on the stereo, reading Christmas story books, watching beloved Christmas movies (and the shows mentioned above). And all the time we are doing those things the house looks beautiful, festive, cozy and even smells like Christmas thanks to Yankee Candle and their awesome Mistletoe candle. None of us have to worry that on top of all the fun family stuff we want to do, we still need to decorate the house. So, it is nice to have most everything done by now. The stores may decorate early because of consumerism. We do it because we LOVE Christmas and everything it means....most of all...that God gave us Himself in the person of his Son. We can't think of a better thing to celebrate around here.
Below are Andrew and Robert putting up the giant inflatable Santa and Christmas Tree and to the right of that is Robert and Autumn during what they call their "Daddy and Tumnal Time" at the Mall waiting to see Santa. (Tumnal is Autumn's nickname...it's a long story). They even have a Daddy and Tumnal Time song. It's adorable. Below them is Toonces in the Christmas garland.


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